Capybara: Select an option by value not text

Question

For the HTML

<select id="date">
  <option value="20120904">Tue 4 Sep 2012</option>
  <option value="20120905">Wed 5 Sep 2012</option>
  <option value="20120906">Thu 6 Sep 2012</option>
</select>

I have the following Capybara Ruby code:

select "20120905", :from => "date"

But this errors with:

cannot select option, no option with text '20120905' in select box 'date' (Capybara::ElementNotFound)

However, if I do

select "Wed 5 Sep 2012", :from => "date"

It's ok.

Is it possible to select an option in Capybara by Value not Text?

Thanks

robynhenderson · Accepted Answer · 2013-03-07T19:11:36.963

77

This will work to select an option by value:

find("option[value='20120905']").click

To maintain the scope of the selector you could wrap it in a within block as such:

within '#date' do
  find("option[value='20120905']").click
end

edited Mar 07 '13 at 19:11

answered Sep 10 '12 at 19:58

robynhenderson

1,348
10
8

23

After switching from Selenium to Poltergeist found that this method do not work. Therefore replaced by find('#select_id').find('option[value="1"]').select_option Sorry for bad English. – woto Jun 21 '13 at 17:23
1

@woto All this options do not work for me. Basically the option is found without problems. I have checked the result and it finds the correct option, but it does not click or select it. I think it needs to first open the select before selecting the option. – Fabrizio Bertoglio Apr 27 '17 at 13:02

score 43 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 12 '13 at 07:40

43

With Poltergeist as driver I can't click on an option like suggested in some of the other options above, instead you can do the following:

page.find_by_id('date').find("option[value='20120905']").select_option

answered Mar 12 '13 at 07:40

Mark

1,058
10
13

Super useful. I created a helper method in spec/support/capybara.rb: def select_option params id = params[:id] value = params[:value] page.find_by_id(id).find("option[value='#{value}']").select_option end – justingordon Mar 27 '13 at 08:17
4

`click` cause for me `The element you are trying to interact with is either not part of the DOM, or is not currently visible on the page` but `select_option` works for me just fine. Thanks! – Artur Małecki Nov 17 '14 at 11:09
This is the answer for capybara-webkit as well. – Doug Johnston Mar 24 '15 at 16:52

d_rail · Answer 3 · 2013-04-04T20:47:32.703

21

I wrote a helper method:

def select_by_value(id, value)
  option_xpath = "//*[@id='#{id}']/option[@value='#{value}']"
  option = find(:xpath, option_xpath).text
  select(option, :from => id)
end

Save in a .rb file in spec/support/

Example use:

before do
  select_by_value 'some_field_id', 'value'
  click_button 'Submit'
end

edited Apr 04 '13 at 20:47

answered Apr 04 '13 at 20:39

d_rail

4,109
32
37

Intention-revealing name, nice implementation. Thanks. – slothbear Aug 14 '13 at 16:25
This (still) seems to be the only version that works without javascript and is somewhat independent of the driver ... – Patru Jul 29 '15 at 02:12

score 4 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 27 '13 at 14:27

4

You can also achieve it by doing the following:

find_by_id('date').find("option[value='20120905']").click

answered Feb 27 '13 at 14:27

TrashyMcTrash

1,234
2
15
39

score 3 · Answer 5 · edited Apr 16 '19 at 10:06

3

That helper method is pretty clever. I would change it just a little bit:

def select_by_value(id, value)

  option_xpath = "//*[@id='#{id}']/option[@value='#{value}']"

  find(:xpath, option_xpath).click

end

or just:

find(:xpath, "//select[@id='date']/option[@value='20120904']").click

edited Apr 16 '19 at 10:06

Obi-Wan

846
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11
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answered Sep 24 '14 at 21:35

GeneK

31
3

score 1 · Answer 6 · answered Feb 05 '16 at 16:37

In my case I have a few options with same text, that's the reason why I need select by value. Combining a few answers together I've found the best solution for me:

def select_by_value(id, value)
  option_xpath = "//*[@id='#{id}']/option[@value='#{value}']"
  find(:xpath, option_xpath).select_option
end

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Sep 10 '14 at 10:56

0

Click using find_field works fine:

find_field("date").find("option[value='20120905']").click

answered Sep 10 '14 at 10:56

cage

103
1
8

It gave me error. Unable to find css "option[value='20120905']" – Kartikey Tanna Apr 10 '17 at 14:10

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 22 '16 at 16:22

You could also use capybara-ui which will look first to match the text, then to match the value.

# define your form widget, in this case in a role
class UserRole < Capybara::UI::Role
  form :my_form do
    select :my_select, 'my_select'
  end
end

# then just submit your form params via #submit
role = UserRole.new

role.submit :my_form, my_select: '20120905'

See more about capybara-ui forms here.

score 0 · Answer 9 · answered Jul 02 '21 at 05:30

0

In case of not visible field, try this

find("#date", visible: false).find("option[value='20120905']").click

Or with scope as:

within '#date', visible: false do
    find("option[value='20120905']").click
end

answered Jul 02 '21 at 05:30

Suman Tiwari

21
2

score 0 · Answer 10 · answered Sep 30 '22 at 18:26

0

You're setting the value.

find(selector).set(value)

answered Sep 30 '22 at 18:26

kwerle

2,225
22
25

Capybara: Select an option by value not text

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